Windy with snow showers Friday; another storm next week

A clipper is bringing some scattered rain and snow showers to much of Minnesota Friday along with high winds. A cold weekend will settle in behind it all with another storm possible next week.

Winter punch in late March

It’s not a big storm system like we saw this past week, but a fast-moving clipper is bringing some scattered rain and snow showers to much of Minnesota.

Relatively minor accumulations will occur for some places, mainly in northern Minnesota.

The most notable feature of Friday’s system is a very tight pressure gradient bringing some very high winds across most of Minnesota and the Dakotas. A high wind advisory cover much of Minnesota through Friday.

Wind gusts will be as high as 40 to 55 mph with sustained speeds even at 20 to 30 mph.

The high winds are bringing in a winter punch of cold air. Temperatures will be 10 to 15 degrees colder than normal with temperatures falling into the teens and single digits Friday night.

Wind chills will be in the single digits and below zero north early Saturday.

Highs on Saturday and Sunday will be in the 30s in the south and 20s, even some teens north. We will recover closer to normal next week — 40s south and 30s north.

Another storm system is shaping up for Tuesday into Thursday that will bring rain, ice and snow again to Minnesota.

There is the potential for some high precipitation amounts once again, but perhaps not. Here are two different model scenarios.

Lake Superior ice fast disappearing

What a difference a week makes on ice on the big lake.

Lake Superior reached a maximum ice cover of 80 percent over a week ago but thanks to the warm temperatures we had, it’s now down to 30 percent.

You can clearly see on satellite the differences.